Mendacity Of Road Politics

Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa

While some opposition ruses in politics can be ignored, others are too sore to be brushed aside. They need to be opened up for the appropriate treatment as septic sores are medically managed.

Some opposition MPs from the Volta Region were reported to have taken exception to what in their opinion is a neglect of roads in that part of the country.

Their misplaced query is anything but sincere. It is in bad state and unbecoming of ladies and gentleman who are deemed honourable by virtue of their positions as representatives of the good people of their constituencies.

It is not difficult to determine the motive for such lies: they are intended to present government as uncaring and discriminatory and eventually incite the people of the Volta Region against the President and his team.

Such cheap propaganda lose their value when the people are for long exposed to them.  

The MPs should not have treaded on that tangent because it exposes their longstanding hypocrisy, stock-in-trade of their political grouping which gives them their inerasable marks. Like the spots on the leopard, the trademark hypocrisy of the NDC is an entrenched attribute.

Former President John Mahama dangled as one of his outstanding achievements the upgrading of the country’s road networks, of course the Volta Region inclusive.

Ironically though roads in this part of the country are some of the most despicable and thinking of the so-called ‘World Bank’ electoral role the Volta Region played in the fortunes of the NDC, such neglect should have elicited a negative reaction from the MPs when the former President John Mahama was at the helm.

They could have been in a trance in those days, without the consciousness to discern the neglect they were subjected to by a party they appeared to have signed a covenant with to defend come what may.

The despicable state of the Volta Region roads and by extension the newly carved regions which were part of it is directly attributable to the non-prioritisation of this sector in the thinking of the former President and the NDC.

We are hard-pressed not to query him for the neglect of a region without whose support his party would have hardly won an election in this country. Yet, what did they attract in terms of reciprocity? Of course, nil as evidenced by the concerns of the MPs.  

Considering the fact that good roads have a lifespan of close to three decades an NDC constructed good road network in the Volta Region should have continued to serve the region for the next two decades and beyond.

The Eastern Corridor roads — for many years a subject of campaign season propaganda — is now receiving attention courtesy of a responsive government.

Will these MPs come off their mendacious ways because lying is an unsustainable occupation?

Our potholed road networks, including the Volta Region segment inherited from the long reign of the NDC, now have a new whiff of life. Good governance comes in multifaceted forms, one of them being keeping faith with the governed.